


When Did We Grow Up?

by Blue_fantasy



Series: Ward of Pyke Series [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Balon won his Rebellion, Canon Divergence - Greyjoy Rebellion, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gift Giving, Homesickness, Sansa was a ward on Pyke, so much fluff I have a cavity, the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25209358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_fantasy/pseuds/Blue_fantasy
Summary: Sansa and Theon deal with their sorrow for things they've lost.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Series: Ward of Pyke Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826338
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21
Collections: Theonsa Challenge





	When Did We Grow Up?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ward of Pyke](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21208562) by [Blue_fantasy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_fantasy/pseuds/Blue_fantasy). 



> This is my entry for the Theonsa Challenge July 2020 Prompt: THE BEACH  
> For more information on the creators' challenge, visit @theonsachallenge on Tumblr
> 
> This is Chapter 21 of my multi-chapter Theonsa fic, Ward of Pyke. It is a canon divergence AU in which Balon won the Greyjoy Rebellion and took Sansa as a ward at the age of 4. This chapter can be enjoyed on its own, knowing that it is an AU. If you want to read Ward of Pyke and don't want spoilers, go read that instead of this.
> 
> Enjoy the fluff.

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

Sansa knew she was dreaming again. She began to call them wolf dreams because the same wolf appeared by her side in almost every one of them. Recently, she was beginning to see Theon more often in her dreams, with the kraken wrapped on his arm. But the dreams had gotten darker since she arrived at Winterfell. This particular time, as she saw Theon appear before her, he began to grimace as if in pain. Soon he was doubled over screaming her name, but no matter how fast she ran, she could not get any closer to him. She could not save him, could not comfort him. Panic rose in her when she heard a knocking sound.

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

Her eyes flashed wide awake, fear and sorrow bubbling over from her dream into her chambers, swirling with the rare morning sun beaming through her window. The relief of finding herself safe in her room at Winterfell helped the fear subside but the sorrow seemed to stick around her heart, trapped inside the cage that was her ribs.

Over the past few months, she felt trapped in Winterfell, its thick fortress walls built to keep out enemy combatants as well as the cold, made her, in turn, feel like she couldn’t escape. Couldn’t escape the confines of the castle or the confines of her role as Princess of the North. 

While Pyke had been ruled by a wretched man and his wretched older sons, she always felt like the walls could never truly hold her in, that she could run wild over the island, breathe the fresh sea air as it blew through her hair, feel the mist on her face, taste the salt on her tongue, and feel the sand between her toes. She knew deep down that it was a false sense of freedom, that she had been held hostage in that old rickety keep. But she knew nothing else. 

Now that she knew Winterfell, she felt so much conflict inside. Moments of utter sorrow would crash over her like waves, sorrow for what she lost. Sorrow for the years she lost with her family. Sorrow for the mother she left on Pyke.

A knock on the door alerted her to the chamber maid’s arrival. 

“Your grace,” Sansa heard through the door.

“Come in.” Sansa sat up and tossed back the blankets, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and slowly flattening her bare feet onto the cold floor. As her maid fussed about the chamber and helped her dress despite her protests, Sansa stared out the bright window in a haze of daydreams and memories. She realized, just like Pyke, that the sun rarely shined this bright in the North.

As soon as the maid had fastened the last bit of clothing on her, she practically ran out the door and down toward the kitchen. She wasn’t going to waste a moment of this sun with breaking her fast in the hall. She wove her way between kitchen staff, grabbing a warm biscuit off a tray fresh out the oven and tucking it into the pocket of her skirts. She spotted a rosy ripe pear in a bowl and added that to her hiding place. Lastly, a wedge of golden cheese sat on a chopping block next to a small knife. She swiped these as well, wrapping the knife in a small towel.

A smile on her face and hop in her step, she intended to quickly pass by the entrance to the hall, hoping to remain unseen, but a familiar figure caught her eye. His head hung over his bowl of porridge, shoulders slumped. He was slowly shoving the contents around the bowl with his spoon, never lifting it to take a bite. Robb sat next to him telling an animated story to Jon across the table. But Theon, he looked like how she felt in her heart.

In that moment, she changed her trajectory and quietly walked over to the table. As he looked up at her, a smile swept across his face, masking the sadness for a bit. She slid onto the bench next to him as he stood to greet her.

“Your grace,” he said politely.

“Oh, please, Theon,” she said as she gently touched his hand and returned his smile. “Not from you, too. We are just breaking fast with family. I am just Sansa.”

His smile continued, a sparkle in his eye as he sat down beside her.

“Can I get you anything, your grace?” A young blonde serving girl approached their table. She must have been close to the boys' age with more curves than she had at thirteen. Sansa watched as Robb and Jon both halted their conversation to watch the girl, who seemed to have her eyes on the prince next to her. But Theon was watching Sansa, as if waiting for her response with delightful anticipation.

“No, thank you,” she dismissed the girl and turned back to a frowning Theon.

“You need to eat something,” he said with concern.

“I have something to eat,” she said as he looked down and she pulled the pear and biscuit just barely out of her pocket. Theon looked down at the food and then back up at her, this time with a smirk, tilting his head, narrowing his eyes.

“What are you up to, Little Wolf?”

“Meet me by the Weirwood tree.”

“Ah, I see,” he said as he ate a spoonful of the cold mush. “What shall I tell my training partners?” Theon gestured toward Robb and Jon with a nod of his head, the two already back in lively conversation, well, mostly Robb.

“Tell them you need some air, need some solitude. I don’t know. Just think of something,” she whispered into his ear.

Hearing her mother’s now-familiar throat-clearing down at the other end of the dais, Sansa stood upright and bobbed a small courtesy to Theon and was quickly off out the hall. 

With a hop in her step, she made her way to her chambers to add something to the stash in her pockets before she headed out to the Godswood.

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

“Go! Court my sister! I want her happy in love and you as well, brother,” Robb said boisterously as he clasped his hands to Theon’s shoulders. He watched as Jon winced at the sentiment. 

Theon had yet to earn Jon’s trust, he could tell. And he didn’t blame him. After all, it was the Greyjoys that broke his family into pieces. He just hoped in time they could grow to rely upon one another.

Theon gave Robb a shy smile and a nod, turning from the training yard toward the Godswood. 

Courting Sansa. Is that what he was doing? He felt like it was just the two of them being the same children they were all those years ago, but with hand-holding and professions spoken aloud of caring deeply for each other. She was still too young for anything more. But he trusted no other person with his heart. He realized that now. In his sorrow of missing his mother and the traitorous deeds he had committed against his own kin, she was the only one who understood the conflict inside him. And possibly his sister, but she was not here with him.

As he approached the Weirwood, he saw Sansa leaning up against the tree, biting into the rosy pear she had hidden in her pocket. As soon as she saw him, a smile lit up her face.

“Theon,” she spoke sweetly. Her hair was down along her back in a traditional Northern style, a simple small braid held the auburn strands back from her face and fell along the neckline of her gown, a much more simple gown than the ones she wore to feasts and court. He found she seemed to prefer gowns like this one and acted more like herself when wearing them. He knew how she felt. Growing up a prince on Pyke was a much more simple life than the formal experiences of the princelings and lordlings of the mainland.

As soon as he got within a few feet of her, she turned and ran toward the thick of the forest. He stood frozen for a moment, watching her run, her skirts hiked up in her hands, her hair flowing in the air like flames. He saw flashes of a little girl, kissed by fire, running just like this down the beach on Pyke, smiling back at him with a gap-toothed grin.

“Well,” Sansa had paused and called back to him. “Are you coming?”

He couldn’t help the silly grin that spread across his face as he chased after his childhood friend. He had sorely missed this feeling, the feeling of freedom, the feeling of comfort in being himself, the feeling of home. Home. As he thought about it, he felt a pang in his heart for his mother and the hurt he must have caused her. If only he could write to her.

As he followed Sansa, a thought crossed in the back of his mind that going off deep into the woods with no chaperone was probably not the type of courting Robb had in mind for his sister. And Queen Catelyn surely wouldn’t approve. But it was so hard to fight the urge to be like they were as children.

He wove between the trees as the forest got thicker, keeping his eye on the red hair in front of him. Soon he found himself in a clearing with Sansa standing in the center looking up at the sky, her chest heaving as she caught her breath from the run. The grass around her reached up to her stocking-covered knees, dress still bunched in her hands as if she might take off running again at any moment. Instead, she turned toward him with a smile, dropped the hem of her skirts, and stretched her arms straight out from her sides. Just as suddenly, she let herself fall backward into the thick soft grass, her skirts billowing as she fell.

“I’ve never seen grass this tall,” he heard her exclaim, hidden amongst the grass. “That I can remember, of course.” She finished her statement with a small laugh.

“It is quite different from Pyke,” he responded as he sat down next to her, flattening a small patch of grass as Sansa began slicing pieces from a wedge of cheese with the knife she had just unwrapped. She offered him a piece. He picked the cheese off the small blade as he continued his thought. “And I must admit, much more beautiful.” Theon looked around at the variety of trees surrounding the clearing.

Sansa sat straight up. “I have to disagree!”

Theon shook his head as he began to protest.

“Let me explain,” she stopped him before a sound came out of his mouth, her smile still gracing her face. “Pyke is more than just the rickety old keep where your father lives. It is more than just the barren expanse of rock with barely enough soil to grow the smallest blade of grass.”

He watched her as she spoke so eloquently about such a desolate place. When had she become more woman than girl? When had she ceased to be the silly little child that followed him everywhere? When had she become this?

“The beach on Pyke might just be the most beautiful place I have ever seen,” she continued, handing him the last bit of cheese and returning the knife to her pocket, wrapped safely in the cloth. “Granted, I haven’t seen much of the Seven Kingdoms, but still, that beach reaches every sense you have, the everchanging shades of green, gray, and blue in the sea. The sound of the waves crashing onshore. The feel of the mist on a rainy day or the warmth of the sun when the clouds part. The taste and smell of salt in the air. The feel of the sand sifting between your toes and through your fingers.”

By this point, Theon had closed his eyes, imagining his best days with Sansa and Yara on the beach.

“When you put it that way,” he said, opening his eyes back up to see her looking at him, studying him, a more contemplative expression. She lifted a hand to his cheek and brushed her knuckles gently against the stubble.

“When did you become a man?” She said softly, a pink color rising in her cheeks as if she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She quickly pulled her hand back and set it in her lap.

“Sansa,” he spoke softly. There was a pleasant silence between them for a while. He watched her intently as she looked around the clearing, studied her hands, and stole glances at him from the corner of her eyes.

“You miss it, don’t you? You miss the sea and the islands,” she paused. “And your mother.” Sansa’s gaze was held down toward her hands in her lap.

“Aye.”

“So, your seventeenth name day is soon. I know my mother is planning a feast to celebrate and I have had a gift for you for a while,” she chuckled as she peered at him through her lashes. “A long while and well I noticed you were missing home and I thought maybe I’d just give it to you now.” She was digging in her pockets this time.

“Sansa, you don’t need to give me anything--”

“Oh, hush,” she stopped him, tilting her head as she smiled and looked up at him. “Close your eyes.”

He smiled back at her and did what she asked.

He felt her hand slide beneath his own that was resting on his knee. She turned his hand palm up and set a hard object in it. As he wrapped his fingers around it, he felt the smooth surface and small bumps of a cone-like shape. He ran his thumb on the long edge of an opening in the side and began to smile as he realized what she had given him.

“Hold it up to your ear,” she instructed him. As he did so, he opened his eyes to see her holding her own conch shell to her ear. “Can you hear home?”

With the sound of crashing waves filling his ears, he felt tears burning behind his eyes and a warmth flooding his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Your kudos make my day. Your comments fuel my writing.
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr @sapphire-reverie and say hi, ask anything, comment, follow, etc.


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